With a wheeled brushcutter you can carry out demanding mowing jobs, even on large spaces and slopes: they eliminate not just weeds, but also stems and branches up to 1.5 cm thick. Capability-wise, they are halfway between a mulching lawnmower and a brushcutter: they cut and shred vegetation, depositing fragments on the ground to be left as natural mulch or buried with a rotary tiller. Wheeled brushcutters are part of the shredder family, together with flail mowers, which are built to tackle even tougher vegetation (shrubs, brambles, reeds, pruning waste, crop residues and so on).
Wheeled brushcutters need regular maintenance to ensure safety and work that is performed to the highest standard, quickly and without overworking the machine or overexerting you: that is the topic of today’s article.
Routine and periodic maintenance of wheeled brushcutters
In principle, both wheeled brushcutters for home use and professional wheeled brushcutters require routine and periodic maintenance. Routine maintenance should be done every time you use the machine, whereas periodic maintenance includes tasks to be carried out after a set number of working hours, preparations for long-term storage, and any repairs and replacements.
Maintaining your Oleo-Mac wheeled brushcutter requires specific skills and tools, so we recommend that you contact the technicians at your nearest service centre whenever necessary. Take the time to read through the user and maintenance manual, which specifies what maintenance needs doing when.
Before using a wheeled brushcutter you should carefully and promptly:
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Identify whether the machine shows signs of wear, damage, oil or petrol leaks.
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Check that bolts and nuts are intact and well tightened.
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Check the engine oil level and, if necessary, top it up (on that subject, read our article on the importance of lubricant oils for maintaining gardening tools).
It is also a good idea to perform a preliminary check on the work area to make sure there are no stumps, stones, posts, pieces of metal or anything else that could pose a risk to your safety or damage your wheeled brushcutter. Get rid of any debris that the machine might kick up (stones, cables, leftover materials, etc.) and keep animals, children and other people a safe distance away, at least 40 m.
At the end of the work session, once the wheeled brushcutter is turned off and the engine has cooled, remember to:
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Remove soil and vegetation residues from the cutting deck with a spatula or compressed air: while you’re doing that, also check the condition, sharpness and secure fixing of the blade.
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Clean the deck with a jet of compressed air: this is a good time to observe whether the machine has suffered any damage.
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Blow out the engine starting system and cylinder fins with compressed air.
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Clean the air filter (approximately every 50 hours of operation).
When to take your wheeled brushcutter to a service centre
As soon as you notice that a component is damaged or worn, don’t try fixing or remedying it yourself. Instead take your Oleo-Mac wheeled brushcutter to your nearest authorised service centre to have the faulty part replaced with an original spare. If the machine strikes an obstacle during operation, vibrates excessively or jams, turn off the engine, let it cool and then check over your wheeled brushcutter. If repairs and replacements are necessary, they must be performed by a service centre; the same applies to sharpening and balancing the cutting blade.
Oleo-Mac service centres are your first port of call for a whole series of additional maintenance interventions on your wheeled brushcutter:
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Changing the engine oil.
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Checking, cleaning or replacing the spark plug.
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Changing the air filter.
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Cleaning and adjusting the carburettor.
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Checking the clearance of the engine valves.
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General engine overhaul.
You can use a wheeled brushcutter to mow grass on uncultivated land, as well as for trimming grassed rows on a small vineyard or orchard faster than would be possible with a brushcutter.
